> Because they don't know who to arrest yet. The idea isn't to fabricate a charge, it's to locate people sharing politically sensitive images that the government hasn't already identified.

And maybe even identify avenues for sharing that they haven't already identified and monitored/controlled (e.g. some encrypted chat app they haven't blocked yet).

China does not really need Apple to do much. They already make installation of some apps mandatory by law. Also, some communication must be done with WeChat and so on. They have pretty good grip already.

> They already make installation of some apps mandatory by law. Also, some communication must be done with WeChat and so on.

Can you give some examples of this on the iPhone?

Also, it seems like on the spying front [1] (at least publicly, with Apple), they've preferred more "backdoor" ways to get access over more overt ones, so this scanning feature might encourage asks that they wouldn't have otherwise made.

[1] this contrasts with the censorship front, where they've been very overt